


From Eden

by spacego



Category: Like Real People Do - Hozier (Song)
Genre: Alternate Earth, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Other, pseudo-crime writing, sharing spaces with the dead, spirit worlds, technical professions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacego/pseuds/spacego
Summary: Where there is life, there is loss. They take tragedy and make it part of their existence.In Eden City, the living and the not-yet-passed work side by side to cherish, serve and protect.





	From Eden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joy_shines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joy_shines/gifts).



> The end notes has some background blather... may contain spoilers.

**Prologue**

Sometimes a person's Spirit lingered long after their mortal remains had been swept along with the sands that blew from the Great Desert into the Bone Seas. There's no rhyme nor reason to their lingering or as to why they had not moved to the Next like they're supposed to. Simply that the reasons were as many as the stars in the skies, one different from the other, all equally unique. 

Stories from the oldest Times told of spirits looking after the living from afar, but none had yet to explain when they first started to work alongside the Living as a matter of reality. 

Eden City, under the Dome that shielded them from the sun's direct glare, was one such place where they seemed to thrive. 

 

* * *

  **PART I - BUGS AND DIRT**

 

 **I/** _I'll tell you my sins, and you can sharpen your knife_

A death row inmate and a few Detectives. Brown watched them from one far corner on the sidelines in a different room separated by a huge pane of two-way mirror. But neither of the players in their private tableau concerned him too much; this part of the Eden City was not his domain—he was just an idle visitor, whiling away time which he had an infinite amount of.

He was curious by nature, so he dropped in, stayed, and watched. There were other people with him in this side of the room; they were trying hard to ignore him watching them watch the other people... over there.

He pitied the detectives who were having a hard time making the Inmate talk, though she had nothing to lose. She was going to die within a few hours anyway. She had, many years ago, in front of the judges, juries, and the whole world watching on live feed on their personal computers, admitted to killing her sister. Though she never told them where she hid her body.

In the end her sister's body, or the lack of it, played little role in the court's decision—patricide and matricide had secured it long before she admitted a third crime. Those bodies, they were able to find. The closed casket funeral arranged by the State on her behalf told what the world needed to know. Her defense attorney was good, one of the best the State could offer to try and level the playing field, but the public didn't care. They had made up their minds, closed their eyes, and deafened their ears to whatever sad tale of family tragedy that the bewigged stern bear of a lawyer tried to feed them. The media poured gasoline and fanned the flames of public opinion, and thus was her path to the noose was sealed long before the gavel fell. 

Those felt like a lifetime ago, and perhaps it was.

"Don't you think it's only fair that she gets to be buried in the family plot?" one of the Detectives asked, a frown on his brow. Their Inmate did not say anything. She merely shifted around on her seat which was bolted to the ground, so her front was against the chair's back, and her back to the glass. They knew she knew it was a two-way mirror, that she was being watched, that she had to be watched. No one made a move to stop her. So she found, for her gaze, a point that seemed to be beyond the newly painted walls. It was soothing, these whitewashed walls, compared to the glass with an eerie brown light shining through it.

"How selfish can you be?" the other Detective asked. "Do you really hate her that much, that you won't give her a proper burial?" There was a flinch, something about burials must've bothered her. Death was something sacred after all.

Once upon a time she had been close with her sister. At one time, they were inseparable. Her sister had been her champion. Against their parents, against their teachers, against the world. She should've felt a pang in her heart, like the million other times those unwanted memories came to her. She should've but she found she felt nothing.

She opened her mouth and hesitated for a while before pushing some words through her unused throat. The people who were on death row with her always though that she was mute. But she wasn't.

She must've spoken some words, because one of the people who were looming above her exclaimed, "Bullshit that you don't remember."

She said some words again, but she could no longer comprehend those words. Perhaps regret, perhaps love. When she turned around again, to put her hands on the table, she looked up and found her reflection on the wall of glass, and she imaged her face juxtaposed against those of the people watching her from beyond it. The faces of people to see her off. Even her own. It made her feel like she was already having an outer-body experience. Dead even when she was still alive. She wondered above life, and now about the afterlife. She wondered about her sister, her only sibling in this whole world, and maybe she had told them what she knew and remembered. Then again maybe not.

She heard something like a commotion from somewhere outside her sphere of consciousness. Soon, she let herself be taken away. She wondered if she would see her sister again in the Afterlife and if she would forgive her. She wondered if she wanted her Sister to forgive her. She only knew that her parents might not.

 

* * *

 

 **II/** _Any thrill will do_

Compared to the building where the interrogation room was found, the Lab was a world away. In some ways, it really was. It was quite bright, for one, with lights spilling out from lamps that stood on surfaces not occupied by a beaker, a dish, or a machine. 

Asal was the name with which the Lab's _de facto_ manager was known around Eden CIty and beyond—the Boss was always absent on some political shindig as only a Boss could. The Lab was Asal's home—there was really no need for a house, an apartment, or even a room where work could not be done. It's not that Asal was a workaholic, merely that Asal found this work (in particular) enjoyable, especially the thrill of discovery. And there's plenty to discover in this world of theirs. 

After the Old World imploded on itself during the most recent extinction event—some scientists thought that it was self-inflicted, others thought it was asteroid rain or the effects of a nearby star—a lot of information  became obsolete if not lost altogether. Outright losses, mutations, and even discoveries of never-before-seen species... Everything seemed new again, and it was up to the Lab to check and catalog.

This time, the Frontierspeople had sent in some rabbit-like animals but with characteristics inconsistent with what they had on record.  Asal patted a bone that had revealed itself from beneath carefully peeled back skin and flesh. The information pad that came with the carcass had already been filled halfway by other Scientists occupying the floors above this one.

It was quiet work, and sometimes very rote and boring. But it was interesting to Asal and so it went. Sometimes, someone would send in some human remains. Mostly for archaeological investigation, since they were long dead and their spirit had moved on. That was a bit more exciting because Asal and the Lab technicians could play at being detectives. Speaking of detectives....

Although the Lab was formally attached to and mostly funded by Eden Conservation Museum and its slew of patrons and donors, the Law Enforcement had this bad habit of treating the Lab as if they owned it—asking them time and again (honestly, more times than they could keep track of) to find a missing person or remains of such person. Less often, but already too frequent for Asal's liking, they would receive a fresh corpse, a victim of a crime that needed to be solved. It was especially raw for Asal, since the victim's family's grief was sometimes too much to bear. Law Enforcement work was almost always time sensitive and very exhausting both emotionally and physically for everyone involved. 

Thankfully, today was not one of those days, Asal thought. However, like a storm brewing on a distant horizon, it's only a matter of time before their 'luck' changed. 

Next to Asal, seemingly oblivious to those dark thoughts, was another technician—younger and brasher—called El, short for Elskede, who was doing the same thing to another rabbit specimen, albeit with a little less finesse. What technical shortcoming was however tempered by a bizarre fascination with all things gory typical perhaps of people of El's age and predisposition.

"Hey Asal..." Elskede said, momentarily distracted and somehow making the mistake of cutting an artery. The flesh had been dead for a while, but it was messy nonetheless.

"Yea?" Asal replied, unconcerned, merely handing over a small piece of tissue that was next to useless for the mess. Elskede took it but did not use it.

"Remember that lady on death row? It's Death-day today."

"And so?" Asal peeled back a particularly sticky sinew, a few layers of muscle, took note of the striations, and worked further to reveal the bone underneath. White, despite specks of stubborn flesh clinging to it. A small pincer would do the trick though.

"I heard that they're still trying to find where she stashed her sister's body. But you know, I think I have a hunch." There was a bright enthusiasm behind those words, an eagerness that had moved the mouth and stilled the hand.

"It's none of our business, El." Asal gave El a small nudge. Talking's fine, but not when it got in the way of work.

"No really... Hear me out okay," El was pumped up now, unable to concentrate on the task at hand. Mind already reeling scenarios at lightning speed.  El had been learning from the Detectives who passed by the lab, and had finally put all relevant arguments like ducks in a row. "So, this person... she is..." El looked up at the clock on one wall, "was a Surveyor for the Frontierscorps, wasn't she? So, it's going to be easy for her to smuggle her sister's body to the Outside."

"Outside of the Dome is a very big place, El." Asal took a different knife, a smaller one and began scraping against the bone. Scratch-scratch-scratch, like a metronome that accompanied Elskede's own thesis which Asal probably heard one word in four.

"I asked around..."

"Poking your nose to where you don't belong, you mean."

"I mean, I have some friends in the Frontiercorps, and one of them said that she had a habit of going out to the Far Border, every other day like clockwork. She started doing it about two years into the service. She always came back with stuff. Like artifacts from the Old World and things like that. I think if we ask around the antique shops and prize hunters camped out at the Far Border, we can get some clue. Someone's bound to see her and her sister, dead or alive."

"Elskede, much as we would like to find the poor woman, it's not our job."

"It is our job! It says so on our mandate!"

"Not this one. We have a lot on our plate as it is."

"Not yet!" El insisted, earning a pointed look followed by Asal's annoyed gesture of pointing the blunt edge of a knife at the two big glass bowls upturned above the sink. El, so familiar with the ways of Asal, merely sighed. El knew when to step back for a chance of another overture. They were already clean, so El only needed to fill them with water, put them over a double burner and ignite a fire underneath. "Is it going to be the herbs that you hide with the beetles or the ones you hid in the soil sample?"

 

* * *

 

Even from this distance Brown could smell something cooking—proper food and not the usual boil-a-specimen-to-take-it-apart. The scent of spices was stronger today, too...

Brown remembered they received some rabbit-like things in the mail from the Biologists in the newer colonies in next Dome over. He hoped Asal hadn't accidentally cooked one.

All through the Earth's history—old and new—scientists had often forgotten about their high scientific calling and stooped to the low taste of the masses and cooked specimens... they almost drove the Great Tortoise to extinction by eating through most of the slow-moving population before realizing “Hey we had yet to catalog this!” Darwin was no saint on that department either. Brown still remembered Asal's lecture on people losing sight of goals more times than he could count.

He went inside the lab sighing.

"Asal, how many times do I have to tell you, no cooking in the la.... ah crap I'm too late, aren't I. So what are you making? Oh my word, it's so gross."

"I got this Old World recipe. And since we have a lot of meat and bones lying around...."

"Don't tell me..." Brown saw some rabbit carcass lying around the lab—one, two, and three in various forms of mutilation, and then a fourth inside the clear beetle-box being eaten away by ever-hungry dermestids. He tried to remember how many they received in the mail.

Asal tutted impatiently. "Of course not,” Asal sighed. Truly, it's not so easy to joke around with Brown. “They're just chicken. Market-bought chicken. You don't think I would use evidence-bones for food do you?"

"It's not like you're going to eat it..." Asal cooked prodigiously in her lab, but Asal never ate what she cooked. Neither did Els. Asal explained once: a Cook becomes full just by looking at their food. But both of them knew: the Dead-though-not-yet-passed needed no such earthly sustenance. 

Both of them grinned at each other; their joke was as old as their friendship that had transcended even their mortal bones. 

"There are people who appreciate my cooking and would like some... unlike you who never could appreciate good cooking."

 

* * *

 

 **III /** _Start digging up the yard for what's left of me_

"So, Bruno..." Asal was the only one in all Eden City to call Brown by the language of the place where his bones were found, and perhaps (just maybe) also the language of the place of his birth. "What brings you over here?" Asal's well-spiced chicken soup and savory bone broth were bubbling nicely, and the scent of food had brought in some errant stragglers. Scientists mostly, who looked like they hadn't eaten for days. Some still had on the same clothes as when Brown saw them a few days ago.  _Oh to be alive_ , he thought. 

He navigated around the hungry and the needy to find a place in the far corner. He had a thing for corners. “Can't I just visit?”

Asal looked at him skeptically, half mocking him with a silent “you think I'm an idiot” and a sterner “pull the other one I dare you”. Nothing really got past Asal's keen sense, and Brown merely sighed.

“Just giving you the heads-up. They found it.”

“What?"

"The location where the Inmate buried her sister."

(Brown watched an odd wordless interaction between Asal and Elskede—something that felt like “I told you so" on Asal's part and a sheepish "okay, sorry" on El's part... none of his business, otherwise).

"Where?"

"Landfill East. She went there whenever she's off duty. Noone thought it weird because the place was within her assigned perimeter anyway. It's common among Surveyors to take mementos and stuff, so they didn't think too much about it. The Landfill had already been written off as of no historical import by the Archeological Department so they're not bothered about her scavenging there. They're artifacts but not important anyway."

"Her Old World junk collection?" So, they're not from dealers or treasure hunters. Not when you have access to Landfill East anyway.

"So, those are not from treasure hunters per se. Rather she went scavenging for herself at the Heap."

"But Landfill East is _HUGE_!" El exclaimed, making sure that everybody realized just how  _huge_  the Landfill was and everything in it. Brown had never been there in person, but he'd seen pictures of it. The trees, the trash piles, indeed they were as big and as high as the biggest and highest things populating Eden City. 

"That's where you and the Scientists upstairs come in." Brown said. Out of everyone, Asal was the best at running a site, even better than the archaeologists upstairs. Asal would commandeer those usually solitary and often-times snappy scientists (Brown was amused at how badly caffeine affected mortal bodies) into a working unit. It was like taking wasps and magically turning them into bees working together for a colony—in some ways, they were just that. Bees... Ants... or worse... dermestids.

"Somehow I knew you'd say that,” Asal deadpanned, already going to work assembling the names of people most suitable for the job.

 

* * * 

 

Landfill East sat just outside of Eden City's current perimeter. It was a defunct site, an Old World legacy teeming with junk upon junk and more junk. Trees and wildlife, surprisingly, grew prodigiously in the empty spaces—growing at a fast rate nobody could've foreseen, perhaps making up for lost time—in between rubbish that came from a different Age. The whole area was already marked for cleanup, to allow the Dome to grow outward as population finally began to outgrow the current space, but extension work was slow. Bureaucracy was a laggard now as it had always been in any Age; Brown found it amusing somehow. 

The trees—Brown would need to ask one of the Biologists about what kind of trees they were, but they looked awfully similar to Sequoias—were very tall and very wide, easily shading the workers from unfiltered sunlight. And yet the pyramids of Old World unperishables still rose effortlessly and rather haughtily far above the canopies. The sun's radiation, unbothered by the earth's already thin atmosphere and the lack of the Dome's protective covering, made short work out of most things.

Still... trees thrived, vying for sunlight with fungi's fruiting bodies and various flowering vines that had anchored themselves on dormant televisions and radios, wheeless bicycles and sideways refrigerators, breaking down plastic and metal, taking toxic material and refrigerant in stride.

 _Nature is scary_ , Brown thought off-handedly. For now, though, man's trash ruled the land. There were hundreds of the same brand, hundreds of the same make and model. Some were stacked neatly, others seemed to have been thrown haphazardly around, as though they didn't care about cataloging anymore. Some stains betrayed the once-existence of organic materials that had at one point in time seeped into the earth and fed the life there. 

The archaeologists made short work of sectioning off the site, then quickly hied off to find refuge under the ledge of the Dome during the sun's highest point. Huddled together and bonding over lunch, Asal made quick work assigning various scientists to their different sections. The Landfill was not only a treasure trove of manmade objects, it was a thriving mini ecosystem that fascinated every scientist in the Dome. In short, there were no shortage of things—dead or otherwise—for the Scientists to sink their proverbial teeth in. 

It was painstaking at first—the Inmate's sister had been dead for a couple of decades, and while trees healed themselves very slowly, clues were few and far in between. Days stretched into weeks and they could not find any body, and though they were not emptyhanded with all the interesting flora and fauna specimens they found, the lack of results weighed upon the whole team.

 

* * *

 

 **IV /** _I feel like a person for a moment in my life_

Despondence was a dark stormy color. As dark as the storm growing in the far horizon. Most of the technicians were already packing up to get out of the weather, and El felt a little bit more discouraged with every passing second. 

"We have a reading!"

It was Brown who called Asal over, elated and exhausted they clambered up the far side of a half-crumbling pyramid made up of refrigerators.

"Here," Brown passed the detector device. He could barely disguise his excitement—after a few false alarms and dead ends, they finally got a positive reading for human remains. But the reading was weird. "Two bodies under here. One large, one small. Child-sized even." Confusion was the only other clear thing in his voice.

"Did her sister also have a child we don't know about?" El was always quick with a hypothesis or two. 

"Wouldn't know until we take her out." Brown cleared his throat, scratchy from all the excitement. "Them out."

The sun had finally fallen low enough for them to start working, but a storm-front was fast approaching. The whole air became electrified and little by little the mortal Scientists called it a day and sought safety. 

Until finally, only the Reachers were the ones left on the field. 

"Asal, I think you should stop now. We'll continue later, tomorrow! Come on in! The storm is closing on us!"

Asal barely stopped working, feverishly putting shovel to soil, and El tried to tamp down a wave of irritation at the words everyone knew Asal would say, "We still have about an hour. I just want to get her and the kid out of the weather if we can!"

"Asal!" Brown shouted out a warning, even as he continued digging without breaking a sweat. Around them a few more Reachers, most likely Brown's apprentices, were in a similar frenzied state. 

"So are you going to help or not?!" Asal yelled, and El knew he had no other choice. 

 

* * * 

 

On the field, they—Asal and the rest of the Scientist-spirits—were known as Reachers. It began as a cruel jest by the Detectives—how they could reach into the earth and pull out corpses and missing people. Perhaps it was their different wavelengths, or perhaps as the jokes circulating around the different precincts held, they just could hear the caterpillars walk and the snails sighing. But truly, they had this down to a science, and they had quickly excavated the woman and the child, barely in time to miss getting caught up in the storm.

The upside of not being tied down to a mortal body was the freedom to be out in the elements. While not totally impervious, they could withstand some of the most adverse weather conditions, of which Eden CIty and its frontiers had plenty to deal with. As long as they had the skies above them and the earth beneath them... They had to be careful though, lest the Earth claimed them for its own, tied them to the Here and made it impossible for them to Move to the next part of their Journey. 

 

* * *

 

Singed and tired, the trio and their hard won prize weaved their way back to the lip of the Dome and all but collapsed even as the baffled Scientists and Detectives greeted them then took the bones off their hands and back to the lab.

The DNA testers descended upon them like hungry harpies.

They had been set and ready since the day they heard a search was declared, equally invested in the story of Sister and equally determined to return Sister to her family. They were itching to contribute something to the search as well. Like most people following the sad tragedy of this family tragedy, they were eager to work.

The report appeared swiftly across Asal's desk. Just going by the sad and hesitant way the envelope was slid across the small document window, Asal knew that the content would not be good. 

"Not Sister. DNA doesn't match. Jane Doe designation assigned," said the report. "Child's DNA doesn't match neither Sister or Jane Doe, either." They called the child, Kid X, the tenth unknown or otherwise unidentified remains of a child that had crossed their Lab this year.

El read through every letter, every full stop and comma, every word as though trying to find hope in an alphabet soup. 

But the implication was clear and it was as if the air was taken wholesale out of the room.

"We'll keep searching,” Brown said, and even through his steady voice one could tell he was shaken. Asal was aghast, pale white in shock and sadness.

Outside the storm sizzled and crackled. A distant tree fell, and they could see it burn to ash in no time. 

 

* * *

 

Tragedy, they said, came in droves. And this search would be no different. As long as people populated the land, there would be no shortage of misery.

Landfill East was a microcosm of human misery. They hadn't expected it when they first started their search for Sister, but now in hindsight, they wonder why they didn't. 

The electric storm had finally passed, directing its terrible power southward. Landfill East looked like a disaster site of fallen totems, broken trees. But it also unearthed another terrible secret. The earth finally gave up its dead. 

Over the course of the week, they found more bones and half-preserved bodies—men, women, children, the occasional hound and dead birds, rats, and voles—buried far beneath the trash heap, some wedged inside the ground a few meters below the surface. Merely looking at the bones, they could tell that they were much older than the bones of the Kid or Jane Doe. A Geologist and Minerologist worked around the clock and concluded, from the layers of dirt and from the half-life of minerals, that they were even from a different Age altogether. 

Putting the search for Sister on the back-burner momentarily, they concentrated their efforts to bring up these ancient bodies. Excavators and heavy machinery were called in, and Landfill East soon turned into a mimicry of a construction site. Although they were there less to build anything up but to tear everything down. 

One of the Archivists found a record of a catastrophe sometime during the Old Age, several hundred years ago. Matching the records, the place, and historical seismology data told them precisely what had happened. A minor earthquake happening seventy miles north of Landfill East had disturbed the precarious haphazard pyramids of trash. A great landslide buried common scavengers alive underneath it. These people had died, by the looks of it, almost instantly. Buried under the weight of other people's discarded memories.

 

* * *

 

El found Asal in the evidence vault—a windowless, colorless room as wide as it was tall with rows of well preserved bones and mummified bodies upright or sideways in glass cases like specimens for an anatomy class. Most of these bones and corpses were entrusted for safekeeping and preservation, as they waited for their cases to be determined at court. But there were also those with no cases at all. Just waiting for who-knows-what, watching time pass for who-knows-how-long from behind clear glass—their whole life reduced to glass vitrines and long metal boxes that supported them.

They had stopped counting somewhere around day three, when it became clear that they were exhuming too many bones and corpses to count, when there formed a macabre parade between Landfill East and the Lab.

Most of them, to their relief, were easy to find DNA matches for; even a rudimentary field kit and an old computer were enough to do the job. It was an odd sense of relief that came to them when they found that many of these ancient bones still had family members to come and collect them—an Age removed, a thousand or so years and many generations apart, the bonds of blood seemed to transcend time.

Perhaps most shockingly, though in hindsight they shouldn't be, there were also more than a few that showed a few trauma markings across their bones indicating that they hadn't died in the Landfill landslide. It seemed that these people had died before or after the landslide itself, and dumped there to look like they did. Much to everyone's relief, DNA and news records quickly matched them with lost victims and it was such a relief that they could give closure to some families' generations of heartache and uncertainty. 

If nothing else, the cases of these landslide victims fascinated El because they gave a glimpse into a persistence of memories. How one lost beloved family member was remembered through generations, even through the death of one earth and the rebirth of another. People who had only heard stories about their ancestors—closer to myths than to actual reality—were visibly touched and genuinely shaken upon receiving the remains of their ancestors. 

Asal had boxed El around the proverbial ears for staring openly, and El sheepishly returned to the lab to find distraction. 

 

* * *

 

They were now three weeks into their search, and a full 36-hours since they last exhumed anybody, and nothing had come out of the ground ever since. 

It would've been nice if the bodies could speak. Skin fell apart, the bones were cold and they betrayed none of their secrets, El thought as he pushed away another set of bones he had finished making casts of. El had somehow, rather unexpectedly, became very very good at making bone casts and model anatomies, and it was indeed something to be proud of, if not for the deluge of work suddenly sent his way by the Scientists upstairs who were, despite their deepest wish, were sorely fettered by their mortal bodies, their need for sustenance, and for sleep. If only the spirits of these bones lingered around. But in most probability, they would've moved on. 

El looked at the number of specimens he still needed to make. The clues would help the Detectives, reunite long-dead victims with descendants they didn't know.

It would've been nice to come across a Lingering Spirit or two. And even then, it would be a gamble as to whether the Lingerer would be mature enough to communicate.

"No one remember their births, neither can they tell us exactly how they die, or whatever happen after. And once shed our mortal bodies, we forget everything." Whatever the Lingerer might claim, it seemed, should be taken with a large grain of salt. 

El always remembered Asal's words of caution, heavy like a cloak.  _Spirits don't remember. Spirits lie._  

 

 

* * *

  

 **V/** _Lay me gently in the cold dark earth/No grave can hold my body down_

Slowly, those ancient bones were reclaimed, repatriated, and for all intents and purposes, taken off their hands. And after the dust had settled, they found themselves back in Square One. They were left with frayed nerves, short tempers, the original two conundrums—Kid X and Jane Doe—and as yet no Sister. The two remains had no identification on them, and they had yet to find a match in the DNA database. They only knew that the Kid and Jane died a few decades ago, more likely five decades but less than a century ago. The kid would've been five or eight at most, and Jane Doe should be in her thirties. 

“The poor things...” Asal said under her breath, like a whispered prayer.

Unprotected and in the wild, the Sun had not only bleached their bones white, the toxic residues of the landfill had somehow melted and fused the two sets of bones together—shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, a smaller skull tucked underneath the chin of the bigger one. Had they known each other when they were alive, or were they only friends in Death?

El watched Asal run through sad scenarios, and became alarmed as Asal's sorrow became even more manifest. A distraction was called for, but El was neither Brown nor Big Boss—both of whom were well-versed in the moods of Asal. 

But beggars can't be choosers, and propriety be damned as El did what young people throughout history would've done—open mouth, insert proverbial foot. 

 _Once more then, into the breach._  

"Hey Asal..."

"Yea?"

"You know the new Geologists?" El barely waited for Asal's nod, "I saw them kissing."

Asal choked out a laugh; a report of something as banal as two people sharing a kiss was definitely not anyone, including or perhaps much less Asal, could have anticipated. "How rude, spying on people..." Asal said instead. 

El had the decency to look embarrassed but quickly mounted a defense. They were kissing on top of a trash heap! El exclaimed, arms flailing about as the story was retold. "Must've been nice..." El finished wistfully. "They seem to enjoy it very much."

Asal hadn't meant to laugh at the longing that was plain in El's voice. Truly sometimes El betrayed how young he had been and how young he still was. "Thank you," Asal said instead. 

"For what?"

"The distraction. For making it less gloomy. ”

For now, El had pulled Asal back a little bit from the precipice. But such was the nature of their work that it wouldn't be long until they returned to the same place.

 

* * *

 

It had been by accident that Brown came across a missing person's report, filed almost sixty years ago by a young-ish couple searching for their lost six year old boy. It was their second report. The first one had been filed about six months prior—the boy had disappeared from the school playground sometime during a routine lunchtime and was never seen again. A third filing happened a bit later with a different precinct. 

All three were filed in Hope Town, which originally bordered Eden City but had become subsumed when Eden City first extended its borders northward. Brown doubted whether either of the couple was still alive—they would've been in their late eighties or nineties by now. He wondered whether they had any other children, siblings to this one boy who never grew up. 

It was fairly easy to track down the parents, though the results only served to discourage Brown even further.

 

* * *

 

Their story was almost like a fairytale, equal parts sweet and unbearably tragic. They had been childhood friends. Both were the only child of their respective families. A prince and a princess in their parents' eyes. They shared one of those carefree childhoods—of sunny days, blue skies, pretty flowers, a mighty oak and fluffy rabbits on a lush green field—that one would fondly tell their grandchildren in the same way as one would tell a sweet bedtime story. 

Flowers wilt and fortunes changed, and soon they were separated when one family went hither and the other one went thither.

But like star-crossed lovers and epic tales, their paths soon crossed again. This time, as students at a college surprisingly close to their childhood haunts. They were now older and more world-weary. The passing time had made orphans out of them, and they were no longer first in anyone's hearts. So they clung to each other and became each other's most important treasure. 

The wedding was a small affair, cheaply arranged, but overflowing with love and support from the friends and makeshift family they had made in college. They found a house, small and old, but warm and welcoming, at the edge of the town they grew up in. During a moonless night, they could see a sea of stars above their heads. Soon, a child was born to them. The boy was a happy baby, as handsome as him and as kind as her. 

Theirs was a small universe of three, under thatched roof and bordered by narrow vegetable plots and buttercup-colored fences. They found contentment even on the difficult days, when no one visited his small one-menu diner or needed her to fix the soles of their shoes, and when they couldn't afford to buy anything from the fishmonger.

Love and Joy were constant visitors of their home every day, until one day they went away with their boy and never came back. 

The man and woman searched frantically for their lost child, and the whole world it seemed—at least for a short time—cried with them. For a while, their pain and desperation were shared, until one day the world moved on while theirs stopped forever.

They separated not long after they filed the third missing person's report and their divorce was finalized on the third anniversary of their son's disappearance. The husband perished in a freak accident as he drove away from the house he had shared with his wife and his never-found child. His car nosedived down a ravine and slowly sunk to the bottom of thick bog mud at the bottom of the hill. It would be many decades until he was found, and even then it was by accident. The wife re-married a few years after his accident, but she and her second husband remained childless until they passed away a decade and a half ago. And just like that, their cursed bloodline ended. 

 

* * *

 

Brown shook his head. He once read that the earth used to be home to seven billion people. Nowadays, Eden City (already one of the most populous in the world with a few thousand people) was lucky if the number of two-person-or-more households hovered in the lower hundreds. 

At least they now knew something about the Kid. That he had been something of a vivacious and gracious boy, easy to love and once upon a time very loved. Unlike Jane Doe—whose DNA turned back no matches, who had no identification or even a story. 

 _Not yet anyway_ , Brown swore under his breath. Every life had a story, Jane would be no different. They just had to persevere a bit more, he convinced himself. If only it wasn't so difficult. 

Encouraged, and with a new sense of purpose, they began to look for fresh clues—not only of the Kid and Jane Doe, but also for the missing Sister. The storm had passed, shouldn't there be hope blooming on the horizon?

 

* * *

 

So it was almost like a miracle, though perhaps it was not, when one of the excavators called the team over to the far corner of the landfill site where they usually parked their machines. There, almost hidden behind a copse of tall trees, was a shack, half submerged in dead cicada shells. Now that they had seen it, they began to wonder why they missed seeing the shack all this time. 

Behind the shack was a makeshift grave. The discovery and subsequent confirmation of her identity seemed almost anticlimatic, El thought, after all the flurry and emotional investment. It was only a thought that El did not dare share to anyone.

They dug the grave slowly, almost too carefully. They lifted her up respectfully, and they cheered under their breath when the tests gave back a positive DNA match. Time, bugs, and bacteria had done a good job on her, who seemed to have passed away peacefully and laid in the ground reverently. But the elements and the weather had not been as kind, and her earthen cradle could only shield her so much. And with no one, except the Inmate, knowing where Sister had been buried, nobody were on hand to perform the Bone Cleaning ceremony, a common practice among Sister's people where preserved bones were kept close to the family and cleaned periodically.

So, El had spent all night before the handover, covering the different hairline cracks and reworking signs of wear on the Sister's bones. It was unnecessary work, of course, but by the end of it her bones were gleaming, mercifully serenely. It was all worth it, El thought, when he watched from afar the exchange being made with Sister's sole remaining family—a very distant uncle who seemed to have arrived so swiftly he must've been borne by the wind itself, who fell to his knees and sobbed like it was the world's end at the sight of her glass-bound bones.

 

* * *

 

The grateful Uncle had made the rounds and thanked _every_ scientist in the Lab, eyes wet and hands trembling. The Scientists were touched by his gesture and commiserated in return. They had gotten to know Sister throughout their search, and Sister had become a part of them.

It was deep into the night when the whole solemn exchange ended. Asal had quickly left with Brown to gaze at the stars of a dead moon night, while El was—as juniors were wont to do—left to clean up the office and set the paperwork straight. 

Unlike Asal and Brown with their endless fascination with the skies, El was all too happy to do paperwork and filing. At least it was quiet and peaceful. El always found solace in the low hum of silence, the distant din of a City mostly going to bed. 

One stack of paper proved to be too much to take up all at once, and half of the top layer fell fluttering to the floor, followed with a thud of a small recorder El didn't know had been tucked in between those loose white sheets. It fell with a loud clatter and a crack, and when El bent down to retrieve it, it switched on by itself. 

 _Magicicadas_ , El recognized the voice of one Entomologist—a short bespectacled girl with very pretty blue eyes—coming out of the recorder.  _The s_ _hack was half buried under magicicada shells_ , she said, ponderous and clear as a bell.  _A bit larger than the perennial cicadas we are used to back in Eden City, and markedly bigger than the usual Magicicadas that are unexposed to constant unfiltered radiation. Curious eye color, not the usual orange, nor the more rare white, but a white-orange flourish like a flattened marble._ El marveled at her unrestrained fascination, so clearly heard despite the tinny sound of low-grade speakers. Would there ever be a subject that would fascinate and captivate El in such a way. El had yet to find it. 

 _Magicicadas live underground for seventeen years, in the dark and quiet,_  the Narrator continued.How do they communicate, El wanted to ask, if they communicate at all. How do they know where their food is—those tree root sap that they prized so much.  _For seventeen years they bided_ _their time, waiting for the right moment_. Sister was buried in the same ground for almost the same length of time. Did they know her? Did they tell her it's time, to get out of the ground? 

 

* * *

 

When Asal and Brown returned from star-gazing, El was already elbow-deep in a mummy of some General of the Old World. Generals were a dime a dozen in the Old World, but the Archivist only wanted to know whether this one was more important than most. 

El looked up when the door opened and found that Asal and Brown were not alone. There was a little ball of energy hovering between them, bright terracotta red and much too excited. 

"A soul?" El asked. Every lingering Spirit was a little ball of energy once—and they learned to evolve into shapes and forms the longer they stayed tied to this earth. 

"Kid X, would you believe?" Asal said with much amusement. "Found the kid just outside of the Dome's entrance. Couldn't get in, obviously..." El blanked out the rest of Asal's explanation, too fascinated with the bright ball of energy bouncing nervously between Asal and Brown. Though many spirits like Brown eventually chose a stable form, identity, and even gender, there were also those like El and Asal who chose to remain in their energy form. However, the child spirit didn't seem very old. In fact, it felt like it had only just been formed, despite having died many decades ago. Perhaps, the Kid's dormant spirit was finally awakened when they disturbed his pitiful grave. The terracotta-colored ball grew agitated under their scrutiny and conjectures, and Brown made some odd gestures that seemed to amuse it. 

"Jane Doe?" El asked. Since the Kid's bones were found fused to Jane's, perhaps...

"Nope. Kid's all alone." Asal seemed to have this innate ability to read El's mind for some reason. "Jane Doe is still MIA..."

"What a pickle," El said drolly. They had just wrapped up Sister, and they had only just decided to postpone research on Kid X and Jane Doe until more evidence could be found. Who knew that the evidence would walk itself in quite so soon? El sighed, already working through the things that would need prepping and doing, without needing to be told. 

Brown looked up from his little charge that had begun to frolick around the lab. "Asal trained you really well," he said, highly amused before chasing the Kid around the room, while making sure none of Asal's specimens fell to the ground.  

 

* * *

  **PART II - EYES ALWAYS SEEKING**

 

 **VI /** _Look sharp and steady into the empty parts of me_  

Over the course of the month, they grew accustomed to Kid X's presence among them. The Kid was a joyful bundle of energy and a curious one too. Not a day passed by without a specimen being misplaced or stacks of paper being toppled over just because the Kid wanted a closer look at something. Curiously enough, Brown was the only one that could calm the Kid down, riding in—so to speak—just in time before the Kid could wreak further havoc and set the Scientists back a few lifetime in work. 

Most of the time, El would find Brown sitting in a corner of the Inner Garden reading to the Kid, and El would always end up wondering what sort of man Brown was when he had been alive. Was he a father? A brother of a big brood? 

"None of your business," Asal would always say, before dragging El back to this or that or the other that never seemed to end. 

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, they had finally found something about Jane Doe. While combing the shack near where they found Sister's body, they realized that the Inmate and Sister must've moved into the Shack rather than build it.

They had been conducting a post-search for Sister's case, collecting evidence and documenting the Shack as additional information, when they discovered things hidden beneath floorboards and behind wallpaper that were inconsistent with the Inmate and Sister. Peeling back the things that they knew belonged to the Inmate and her Sister, they found a different set of lives, an older one, but no less vibrant.  

Scraping away a section of wallpaper revealed childish crayon scribbles—a crude cottage with fading yellow fencing and a scattering of stars of different sizes over a scraggly roof. Lifting up the ratty carpeting gave them twisted floorboards. A small flat comb with carved roses lay between the slats, next to a broken piece of a shockingly bright blue playing marble. In the kitchen underneath an old cupboard, beneath a well-concealed miniature trap door whose hinges had jammed, they found mementos kept in boxes and clear jars filled with whimsy.

The crew ended up with two meager containers, one of the Kid and another of Jane Doe. It wasn't much, but they were plenty when before they had none. 

Asal and the Scientists finally had enough clues of the woman, and they quickly traced her back to Hope City, to the only person on record to share genetic ties with her—a grand-niece several times removed. They were able to contact said grand-niece, and she confirmed that Jane Doe might be Rose who had indeed existed in the family tree. She was able to produce some family albums and yellowing pictures that provided matches for the objects found in the Shack, and then some.

How odd, the grand niece continued with much puzzlement, because Rose had perished in the Hope City Fire sixty odd years ago. 

Though it happened a long time ago, the Fire was one of those major catastrophes that had become part of public consciousness, taught in history classes and used as a benchmark to compare any subsequent fires to. An oven had burst into flames in one of the bakeries in the shanties of Hope City and quickly ate through most of the area before it could be contained. Many of the fire victims could no longer be identified, but they did find Jane—or rather Rose's—identification papers among those they could collect. 

Without a body, coroners had just assumed that Rose, like many others, perished in the fire altogether. There had been empty-casket funeral for the vivacious woman, modestly paid for by the government. 

Had she escaped the fire, somehow? If she had, why did she not return to her family? How did she end up at the Landfill with the Kid? 

And why couldn't they find her spirit when they had found the Kid's? Where did she go? Why had she disappeared a second time?

 

* * *

Another dawn arrived, and El found Asal in the evidence vault again. The room was the same as it always was, cavernous, sterile and cold. El thought that with most of the Landfill victims' bodies removed for their final journey, the room would look emptier. It looked the same. Similarly foreboding and claustrophobic.

There were three sets of bones left from their most recent case—the Kid's, Jane Doe's, and one that glowed like burnt sienna with a bit of flesh hanging around one of its eyesockets. El had no clue whatsoever about this last one. From what Asal was able to tell him, that one had been a last minute addition; the bones had been found not far from where they had exhumed Sister, tucked underneath dense wild ivy brush. 

El didn't ask why Asal was there, merely trailed Asal around the room, almost bumped into Asal as their tracks abruptly stopped in front of one particular glass-encased set of bones.

Recognition dawned on El. Turning to Asal who was studiously avoiding looking at those bones, El spoke, almost too quietly, perhaps a bit warily, "That's you, isn't it?"

El watched Asal's aura pulse yellow gold and honey rust. There's the same warmth from the skeleton despite appearing bone white and eeriely cold under overhead illumination.

"Maybe."

There should've been a name tag next to the glass, but somehow it had disappeared. "When did they take out the name plates?"

"Who knows?" Asal said, in a way that signaled indifference.

El knew that Asal knew of course, and in some ways El already knew the reason why too, though El never bothered to confirm it. El also knew a dismissal and didn't need to be told twice.

The room fascinated El above everything, here were the earthly remains of the people they found and the people they worked with. El recognized some of them from the aura they emit, others were unfamiliar because perhaps they had yet to meet. Yet others were probably too new or too old to remember.

Then there was an outline of a person so petrified it almost looked like a piece of wood. "Ah... this one is you, isn't it?" It's Asal's turn to speak.

"You know it is, don't play coy. You were the one who pulled me out." It's only recently that El was able to look at this petrified body without feeling oddly weirded out. 

"Did I? I don't remember..." Though it might be avoidance on Asal's part, it was not entirely deceitful. Remembering was discouraged among lingering spirits, even Reachers like them, because the Past only serve to tie them down, making it harder for them to move to the Next. It was also one of the reasons why the Powers that Be decided to take down all identification on Reacherbones, and put their personal information under the proverbial bureaucratic lock and key. 

“Who pulled you out?” El asked. 

“Hmm... I wonder.”

“Was it Brown?”

“Could it be? I don't think so. Why ask? Not jealous, are you?” El could see that Asal was thinking hard, like trying to reach to a fruit hanging low but just a little out of reach. Perhaps El's question was more bothersome than Asal tried to make it look. 

El still had a lot of things to ask but soon realized they were not alone in the room. There was Brown of course, and someone else.

Everyone had a distinct aura about them. Brown was dark rich brown and Asal was honeycolored, for instance. The stranger pulsed ever-so-gently, softly-softly, like someone who had just rediscovered their light—earthy and warm like burnt sienna. Unlike Brown who had adopted a permanent human form that might or might not be his past self, the stranger was a flickering existence, like Asal or El. 

"You're that third body," El commented as recognition dawned, his mouth once again running ahead of decorum.

The stranger barely acknowledged El or anyone else; no one was immune to the pull of their own bones anyway. There's a sense of fascination uniform to a first out-of-body experience, of looking down at one's own quiet bodies or bones at once familiar and foreign. It never really went away. 

"When they found me," the stranger spoke, so quiet it was almost like a murmur, recounting the day when Brown and his apprentices came across her spirit, Lingering not far from where her body was found. "I told them that this is not my land. Or at least... I feel like I'm restless. it doesn't feel at all familiar to me." The stranger looked sheepish, as though expecting to be laughed at.

"I know, right?" El said instead, genuinely commiserating. And the tenseness around the stranger's aura dissipated. 

"Then they told me I can wait here. Make myself useful." It was a better option than an eternity of idleness. "But I wonder what I can do to help. I don't even know what I did when I was alive."

"Don't worry," El said. "No one does. Take me for example. I might've been a vagrant in my past life, who knows." 

The stranger was still skeptical, El could tell. The apprehension was thick and genuine. 

"Don't worry. As long as you learn quickly and listen to what Asal say. Works for me," El said in the most reassuring tone anyone could muster. "So, What's your name? Or rather, what should we call you?"

"I don't know."

"Nobody told you or gave you a name yet?"

"Not really. Anyway, perhaps when they've found my home, I'll be able to tell you."

Home, El pondered. Even to those like El, Asal, or this new-person-yet-to-be-named (everyone who had no mortal ties like the ones still living did), the word sounded like a siren song. It held so many promises and yet it refused to let itself be known. The world was big, El knew as much, even without looking at the Maps the Geographers kept. Their world inside this Dome was but a small sliver of what's outside.

Home, El thought. What a wonderful word. It was, for El, a word that evoked a unique, tremulous feeling in the soul, and for a time now El had understood that it was not an aberration. Some spirits hung around because they had things left unfinished. Some spirits hung around because they're waiting for that invisible thread to lead them back home. Like Ariadne being led out of the dark maze. Like the turtles and salmon drawn by that primeval urge to return to their birthplace, like the amphibians that would sooner or later succumb to water-drive, many spirits would sooner or later find their way home, and from there, they finally could begin their journey to the Next. 

"Welcome, Junior!" Asal said, so loud it smashed El's monologue. It wasn't just because Junior provided distraction from the heavy questions posed by broken bones. Asal was always excited to get extra help around the lab. Soon, the stranger was whisked into the lab and shown around. Things were pointed out, and everything was explained at as though they were running out of the time they practically had an infinite amount of. In time, El too was summoned out of the evidence room and straight in to work, for dead or alive, work waited for no one. 

 

* * *

 

 **VII/** _Leave it to the land, offer it a soul/That's how it sleeps_

"Yo! What's cookin'?" Brown barged into Asal's space without a care.

It was nearly dawn, the City was still mostly asleep but Asal was at her writing desk. Even a Reacher had paperwork, endless of it, to do. To Asal, this was probably one of the tougher paperwork to do. Paperwork was supposed to be boring, rote, and mind-numbing. At rare times like this, it was also emotionally draining. Usually Asal would make a show of complaining, and Brown would make a show of consoling, and the two of them would tackle whatever paperwork still left.  But one look at Brown and Asal knew the usual banter had to be shelved. Brown looked like he was suffering. 

Not twenty four hours had passed since they were able to release the remains of Jane Doe—or Rose, rather—to her grand-niece. It was a decision they had arrived at despite the many questions and puzzles still left. The handover was nothing special, almost routine. But the road leading up to it had not been easy. Not for anyone. 

 

* * *

 

After the initial contact with Rose's grand-niece had been made some time ago, a series of discussions took place, mostly about whether the living family would like to take Rose back. Lawyers were involved and City officials were involved too. After a few weeks of back and forth, it was decided to repatriate Rose's remains to her family plot. But not before they separated Rose's bones from the Kid. 

Technically, it was already difficult to separate such strongly fused bones without destroying the integrity and dignity of both Rose and the Kid. 

No one expected how such separation physically affected the Kid, however. 

Brown was at wits end trying to console the Kid as every new incision drew fresh waves of agony on the Kid's part. Whatever their relationship had been when they were alive, it was clear that they had bonded strongly in death. They had been together for much longer than the Kid had been alive—a boy and his protectress. 

The day progressed, and the Kid's wailing punctuated the high piercing sound of the surgeon's bone drill, slowly, agonizingly, well into the night. When it ended, no soul in the Lab building was safe. The Kid's sorrow had cut a swathe through already frayed nerves and tenuous emotional landscape. The clear night skies outside the window made a mockery of the despair they all felt. It broke Asal's heart to see the two set of skeletons now separated. 

WIthout Rose's protective embrace, the Kid's bones looked impossibly small, looking as though he had curled himself into tighter and ever tighter ball, a pale imitation of an armadillo. Rose's bones too, bereft of the Kid to protect, looked as though outstretched, lonely and sad, seeking and beseeching her precious charge. 

Everyone decided to wait a week—to allow the Kid to cope with the loss of Rose and to allow Rose's grand-niece to put everything into order.

The cries stopped at least a week after the separation, and the Kid had taken up frolicking in the gardens again. Everyone would be forgiven to think that the coast was clear.

But when Rose's grand niece came yesterday, taking Rose's bones with her, no one—not even Brown—was ready for the onslaught of grief that hit them squarely like a juggernaut. And as the most visible result, this morning, the lab was emptier than normal, as everyone tried to recover from second-hand sorrow. 

 

* * *

 

Brown fiddled and Asal merely raised a proverbial eyebrow and gave a disapproving look which Brown studiously ignored. "So, what's on the menu today?" Inquiring about food to Brown was like inquiring about weather to everyone else. Asal made a show of checking the view from the window. It's still too early in the morning, the sun had yet to rise above the horizon.

"I think, thin sliced bison," Asal replied with more gentleness than usual. Brown had a feeling that Asal might be humoring him. He must've looked a sight, he barely had any rest looking after a distraught Kid throughout the night. 

When Brown stayed quiet, Asal looked up from her notes and tutted. Brown lifted a blue beaker and made an attempt at examining its contents. It didn't seem to be so important, as Asal didn't make a move to reprimand him. "If you're looking for Junior, you're too early. The young ones don't come in until later." Asal paused to straighten up the blue beaker that was on the verge of tipping over. "Probably much later today because of you-know-what."

"I see," was the only response Brown gave. His replacement—the yet to be named new Reacher, who had thus far rejected every name but seemed to gel on to Junior because Asal said so—had been with the lab for a month now, setting in well and making friends with the rest of the Reachers from this shift and the others, and the living Scientists. "I'm going to miss seeing you cook." 

It was a non-sequitur that could've been easily misconstrued by others. But Asal was not like any other. 

Asal only barely managed to swallow a gasp of surprise. "You're finally moving on?" Asal asked instead, growing serious and somber. Parting was always the hardest. Brown had been with them the longest, even longer than Asal, some said, but Asal was ready to dispute that. For a long time, Brown had never gave any indication that he was one of the spirits that ever looked forward to moving on. Like Big Boss, Brown seemed too invested, too tightly bound to this side of the Earth. 

But recently, even before the whole Sister debacle, Asal had a feeling that Brown was looking for a reason—any reason—to move on. This Reacher job was never easy on anyone. Not even Brown who proclaimed up and down that nothing could affect him. "A job is a job is a job," was Brown's mantra. Asal thought it was the biggest pile of bullcrap anyone had ever heard. 

"Yes. I think I am," Brown said, much aware of what's going through Asal's mind. 

"And I can't ask why."

"And I can't tell you why, only that it's Time."

"I wonder if I can ask you whether it has something to do with that Kid." Asal would not be Asal without these baiting inquiries. And Brown found himself putty to anything Asal might've asked of him. 

In hindsight, this past week, the Kid was not getting better, merely struggling to cope and failing, grieving so badly that his spirit might fade without recourse. Everything culminated yesterday, when Rose finally left the city limits. They had decided, perhaps too unkindly, that the Kid should be encouraged to begin the journey to the Next. It was the best solution they could think of, especially since the Kid seemed to be reluctant to return home. 

Unwilling to leave, as the Kid seemed to have developed a curious attachment to the Museum and especially Brown, other avenues must be found. Unwilling to further sever the Kid's attachment—two severances in such a short space of time would break even the strongest souls—Brown decided he would guide the Kid to the Next, thus finally moving on himself. 

"I wonder if I can answer that," he merely said. Asal though that perhaps, this was the child he had been waiting for across his several lifetimes. 

Around the corner, they could both hear an echo of a laugh, then a flash of soft maroon light tumblewheeling across the corridor. Like any children in the world, Living or otherwise, the Kid had great coping powers, seemingly better today than yesterday, seemingly to have bounced back. But around the edges of that bright childish light was a ring of innate sorrow. The Kid, they called that little bundle of tireless energy. Brown realized that they never properly gave the Kid a name, hadn't even told the Kid about the name of his parents gave him. There's no need to give Moving souls a name, for fear of anchoring them unnecessarily to the mortal earth.

"I'll take the kid's stuff down to the Children's Tree," Asal said with a sigh. The Children's Tree was perhaps the oldest tree in all of Eden City. A tall and stately oak tree, it stood in the memorial courtyard, reserved for remains of children who were unable to leave for their ancestral homes. Of all the trees in the courtyard, the Children's Tree was always going to be the most painful. Young souls, too young to depart, but lingering and waiting and grieving. Tucked between its boughs, lulled by the perpetually rustling leaves, little boxes held the little cold bodies spoke of life lost too soon. Their remains would stay there, nurtured by the tree until they properly moved to the Next. Only then could their belongings and bodies be removed from the Tree. Unfortunately, it happened all too infrequently. It was easy to tell, which of the children had been there a long time—the tree had grown around them, slowly, very slowly, engulfing them in its branches, making them an inseparable part of it. Brown would always be very grateful to Asal for doing him this favor.

"I'll do the proper rites for the kid on your behalf. But we call first dibs on the sacrificial buffalo, okay?"

"Sure, much indebted. Gosh, take the biggest one if you want. I wish I could do it myself, but...."

"It's going to be tough for you, you know..." Asal watched the Kid chase around a stray termite around the Lab. A pest controller must be brought in, Asal made a mental note. 

"It's going to be worth it," Silence stretched like molasses between them. As two beings no longer truly alive, time meant nothing. But at this moment, it meant everything. Asal would've cried, and Brown would've too. But neither of them did. "Anyway, be good to my replacement," Brown said and winked a final farewell. 

 

* * *

 

 **VIII/** _A frozen devotion_  

“Was that Brown?” El asked, stepping into the room as nonchalantly as anyone could probably muster. The night had been restless, and no amount of arranging and rearranging the furniture could soothe that persistent nagging feeling. So El had decided to come to work early. 

“You know very well who that was, you eavesdropper...”

 _Busted!_  El had expected it of Asal. Nothing of El antics had flown with Asal, it was a bit frustrating at times. 

“He's finally moving on...” El grew somber. 

“Well, he's been around here longer than most. I've known him all my existence here," Asal tried to appear unaffected. Brown had been a fixture in their daily existence for as long as El or anyone could remember. From the time of El's very first awakening, it had always been Brown and Mel—and the Big Boss too, but El had a suspicion that the Big Boss had existed since time immemorial. "It's not just you... We're all going to miss him."

“When will _you_ move on?” It was not El's intention to give voice to his first fear. The fear of abandonment, El reckoned. Wonder where that came from. When a Reacher properly passed, what will happen to them during Judgment? Will El ever meet them again, El wondered. 

Asal's usually vibrant honey color had become dull once Brown left the room. It was not so stark of a change, but El had been paying attention for a while now not to notice. For the first time, El truly saw the toll of working as a Reacher had been on Asal. How many people had Asal bid farewell to or watch as they went off to the Next? They said that Reachers never kept memories of their work. But surely certain feelings, sentiments and emotions became indelibly attached to one's color. No one's colors stayed the same after an incident. Even El's color had changed, and El kept written notes on each progression. 

"Brown often asked the same thing you do," Asal sighed, and El had a feeling Asal was just a tad bit patronizing. But El stayed quiet recognizing that perhaps Asal too (even Asal) needed to vent. 

Much as El loathed to admit, Brown had been a source of comfort and succor for Asal. EL wondered if whether Asal could come to become someone as trustworthy, someone as dependable, as Brown had been. Someone Asal could turn to and lean on when the goings get tough. 

"The myth of not remembering, not being affected, is just that... just a myth. Even Bruno who goes up and down declaring 'just another job, just another job'. Pure bullcrap." Asal chuckled, if only because cursing was never part of Asal's daily vocabulary. Not even when things got tough or frustrating. "Moving on? Perhaps I'll never do. This is the relationship I've made with Death, my purgatory."

SIlence stretched and beyond the windows the sun rose, unfailingly as it always did.

"It's going to be alright, Elskede." 

El didn't have the courage to call Asal on that particular bluff.  

 

* * *

 

 **Coda /** _In some sad way, I already know_

There was an empty spot over at the far alcove, a darkish brown outline of a skeleton that used to be there. Soon, the cleaning crew would come in, and one of Brown's apprentices would come and purify it, remove all traces of Brown's memory, thus severing his ties to the here, for he's on a passage to the next life.

Brown and the Kid left to begin their Journey without everyone really realizing. One day Brown and the Kid were there, and another day they weren't. El had been busy with one thing or another, and the Day passed by just like that, despite wanting to be there to say his final goodbyes.

El truly believed that the Judges of the Afterlife would not find fault in Brown. Soon, the spot would go to someone else. Perhaps next time around it would be someone El pull out from the ground. It's about time they had El had a junior in the office to help him manage Asal's increasingly complicated demands.

El felt rather than saw Asal passing through the threshold that led to their Lab. These days Asal could be found venturing out to the Children's Tree, then loitering there for a long time. El had more than once offered to come along, but had been turned down at every turn. El wondered what Asal did at the Tree, whether Asal spoke to the Kid and if the Kid heard Asal's prayers. El wondered why Asal's colors had changed again. 

Perhaps, Asal would one day Move on, and perhaps El would one day feel the same feelings Asal had felt upon parting with Brown. But that Time, El knew, was still far away, beyond anyone's comprehension, much less El's. 

It's almost lunchtime now.

Reachers like them needed no earthly nourishment, but Eden City had no shortage of hungry Scientists to feed.

 

 _Something of his sad freedom,_  
_as he rode the tumbril,_  
_should come to me, driving,_  
_slaying the names..._

 _~The Tollund Man,_ Seamus Heaney

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Joy_Shines,  
> Thank you for the opportunity to write this story, for the prompts that allowed me to embark on an amazing writing journey, and to revisit Hozier. I dearly pray that this modest Yuletide offering fits (in some small way) with what you're looking for. 
> 
>  
> 
> Note 1: Sub-titles are quotes taken from various songs on Hozier's [eponymous album](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hozier_\(album\)) of 2014.
> 
> Note 2: The story is inspired by the utterly inspiring work of Necrosearch, a Colorado-based world-leading multi-disciplinary group for locating and retrieving missing bodies. Three such accounts of their work can be found [here ](http://www.5280.com/2017/10/lost-and-found-2/) and [here](http://www.westword.com/news/the-searchers-5054982) and [here](https://wildbluepress.com/no-stone-unturned-steve-jackson-true-crime/). Certain details—quotes and scenes—in "From Eden" have been taken and/or adapted from the articles above. But because I'm very pants at world building, please don't miss reading the above articles for _much_ better writing, I promise. 
> 
> The phrase in the story description is an adaptation of Diane France's words as quoted in the article above: "I’ve seen things people shouldn’t see, but that’s the relationship I’ve made with death. I’ve taken tragedy and made it part of my life."
> 
> Note 3: _regarding names_ Asal (or 'asal) is Arabic for Honey (which is also rather homophonic with the Arabic word for Origin, _(al)asal_ ). Elskede is Danish for Beloved and also a past tense of 'to love'. Bruno is dark brown in Spanish, but as a name it is often traced back to the Old High German word Brun meaning Shield or Armor (protector).
> 
> Note 4: The premise of the Not-yet-Passed is inspired by the practice of secondary burials in many cultures—where the deceased are not considered as immediately passing to the afterlife following their Mortal deaths. Reasons differ from one culture to the next (either they are waiting for an auspicious moment, or that the deceased are waiting to be buried back in their ancestral homelands, or there are certain 'life debts' of the deceased that the descendants must fulfill, etc), but before their final burials—or their final journey—the deceased are still with the community, looking out and blessing the community. Although of course, here it is taken to be more literal that the Not-yet-Passed play a more active role in "looking after the community" aspect. 
> 
> Further reading on deferred rituals or secondary funerals can be seen for instance in the practices of [Famadihana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famadihana), [Ma'nene](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/04/death-dying-grief-funeral-ceremony-corpse/), [Mangokal Holi](http://spaj.ukm.my/jurnalarkeologi/index.php/jurnalarkeologi/article/viewFile/110/62), or [Palebon](http://factsanddetails.com/indonesia/Minorities_and_Regions/sub6_3h/entry-4025.html), to name but a few. 
> 
> Note 5: The Dome of Eden City is inspired by [Eden Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Project) in Cornwall, albeit perhaps more urbanized and much bigger in size.
> 
> Note 6: Most adult [cicadas](http://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/how-long-do-cicadas-live/) appear on an annual basis, but some species emerge from the ground periodically. As adults above ground, they only live for month or so, but may spend their nymph-stage underground up to 17 or more years. Cicadas usually have orange [eyes](http://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/category/cicada-anatomy/eye-color/), but white, blue, mustard, and marble-colored eyes are present also. 
> 
> Note 7: The Giant Tortoise naming problem as told [by QI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPggB4MfPnk).
> 
> Note 8: The Great Desert is inspired by the [desertification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification) of Central Asia, where vast tracts of land is being quickly swallowed up by Gobi Desert, arguably the 'fastest' moving Desert on earth. The Bone Seas is inspired by [coral bleaching events](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html) affecting coral reefs across the globe.


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